


lasso the love out of you

by mcmeekin



Category: Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, Bad Parenting, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 14:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmeekin/pseuds/mcmeekin
Summary: in regards to noah, and how he adjusts slowly to dating five people (and how those five people adjust slowly to dating him)





	lasso the love out of you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenvernage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenvernage/gifts).



> hello and welcome back to another episode of "tried to write something simple but my kids demanded more" featuring me, you friendly neighborhood team-all-dating-each-other fanatic.
> 
> enjoy ?
> 
> title from "wonder woman" by kacey musgraves

“This is stupid.”

“It’s not stupid; you’re being romantic.”

“I’m being stupid.”

Gia muffles a groan as she rolls over, cracking an eye to look at who is arguing in her room before she’s even awake. Shapes that look vaguely like Jake and Noah are standing near her bed. Of course it’s those two.

She pushes her face into her pillow, still barely awake. “What do you guys want?” Her question is probably muffled beyond recognition, but she thinks she’s justified considering the circumstances.

“Noah wants to give you something.” She recognizes their voices now that she is forced into a more awake state; Jake sounds vaguely like he’s holding Noah at gunpoint.

Gia sticks her hand out vaguely in their direction to receive whatever gift it is, so she can go back to sleep in peace. She’s met with several seconds of silence. Noah makes a noise that sounds vaguely embarrassed but mostly like he’s being strangled. This makes Gia finally actually lift her head (just in case he really is getting strangled) and blink awake properly. Which is when she finally sees that Noah is holding—

“You brought me a tray,” is what comes out of her mouth. She’s not sure she meant to say it out loud, but her brain is still booting up, and it feels like it’s lagging on the image of Noah holding a tray out to her.

This was the wrong thing to say. Noah groans loudly and turns to as if to leave immediately. “I told you this was stupid,” he says to Jake, looking flushed and beyond embarrassed about the whole ordeal. Jake grabs his arm to keep him from turning. Jake has an almost grossly endeared expression on his face, as if Noah hung the moon itself (and Gia has days where she thinks he might have, actually).

“A _breakfast_ tray,” Jake emphasizes. “He brought you _breakfast in bed_. Isn’t that _so romantic_ , Gia? Isn’t Noah just so romantic?” He looks at her hard, definitely trying to tell her something with his eyes. But Gia has just been woken up abruptly and can’t seem to form linear thoughts.

She blinks slowly at the both of them. “Why is there a plant—”

“It’s a rose!” Noah (pretty much) shouts. “It’s a rose in a vase.”

“Romantic, right?” Jake adds helpfully.

Gia blinks again. Slowly she extends her arms to accept the tray. Noah puts it in her lap, glaring at it as if it had kicked his puppy moments before. Gia examines the contents carefully. Some runny eggs, toast (maybe burned?), assorted sliced fruit that is mushy, the rose, and a mug of either weak coffee or some of that expresso tea bullshit that Emma likes.

Gia looks back up at the both of them. Jake’s eyes are practically burrowing a hole in her head. She almost gets huffy; he doesn’t need to threaten her so much. She’s realized what’s going on. “Thank you Noah. This _is_ very romantic.”

Noah looks back at her suspiciously for a moment before smiling a little. “I made it all myself.”

Gia nods (hopefully enthusiastically). “It looks perfect. Do you want to stay while I eat?” She pats the other side of her bed in invitation. Noah hesitates for a moment, glancing a Jake. Jake nudges him with his shoulder and gives him a wide, encouraging grin. Noah looks back at Gia and nods before climbing into bed with her. Jake settles on the end of the bed, still looking at Noah fondly. After a couple of gentle questions from Jake, Noah is chatting comfortably about all the kitchen mishaps that occurred while he made the breakfast and other inane topics.

Gia’s still not 100% awake, so she leans her head on his shoulder while he talks and just listens. Once she’s gotten a little weak coffee in her system, she prompts Noah to feed her a couple of bites too, just to watch him blush. (Then Jake whines about being ignored, so she lets him feed her too.)

 

The beginning of their relationship went a little something like this: All of them privately lamenting having multiple crushes on each other until Orion confessed his feelings to all of them and then expressed shock that the people of Earth were largely monogamous. It felt almost like a bad punchline, how simple the solution to their problem was. They’re not open about the nature of their relationship to other people or in public, but they’re not necessarily closed about it either. Nobody asks, so they don’t tell.

There are either more or less rules to being in a polyamorous six-some with your roommates slash former teammates than Gia expected, and she’s not sure which one it is. Less set-in-stone, written-down-on-the-fridge rules. More unspoken, tip-toed around rules. Gia thinks the lack of concrete knowledge is part of what makes Noah antsy. Noah likes for things to be written down, spelled out, and printed in bold. Unfortunately, their relationship is…nebulous. Without definite borders. And Noah seemed uncomfortable in their relationship for the longest time, before the rest of them identified what was stressing him out the most and bent over backwards to make him more comfortable. Because all of them would quite literally move mountains for Noah.

Of all of them, Noah has the most strained home life. Not the worst, definitely, but the most tense. His parents have all the pretenses of being good ones, but anyone who gets close to Noah can see the set of his shoulders when he enters his parents’ presence. Anyone who talks to his parents for more than ten minutes can see that Noah expressing a wish to do anything except marry a nice girl and have 2.5 children wouldn’t be met well. Jake knew this first and knew it best, so his protective streak for Noah might run deepest. Orion took the longest to catch on, which involved a painful couple of weeks where Noah would pull away from him in public, and Orion would be hurt but not know what was wrong.

Things get exponentially better after high school. Now, they’re in a different city from all their families, in a house they pay rent for, in privacy no one can judge them in. They get to have more fun. More dates, more easy laughs, less tension in Noah’s smiles, less aborted acts of affection from all of them. Who cares who knows, in a city of strangers?

They’re always finding out new things about each other. For example: Gia, Jake, and Orion aren’t allowed to go on dates unsupervised. Troy enforces this, mostly after the time the three of them got banned from a local bowling alley for property damage that they all three maintain was not their fault. Jake insists that the other three shouldn’t be unsupervised either, since they would just “be boring” all day if anyone let them. It’s an ongoing dispute.

Most recently, they found out Noah like doing nice things for them, but only when he’s nervous that they’ve forgotten about him.

Troy blinks at Jake in confusion when he tells them this while Noah’s still at class one night. “I’m sorry; he thinks we what now?”

“Well, not really forget him,” Jake says. “Just… you know he feels bad every time he can’t show us affection. So I think he thinks that we don’t feel as loved by him as we do by each other. That’s why he gives us little gifts or does nice, romantic things to try to make up for it.”  
“His love language is acts of service,” Emma says, nodding along with what Jake is saying.

“Noah has his own language?” Orion asks, furrowing his brow in confusion.

“No, no,” Emma hurries to clarify. “Just, he has his own special way of showing us that he loves us. By doing nice things, instead of maybe giving us a kiss every time he sees us, like you do. It’s different, but not wrong.” Orion nods slowly, still looking a little unconvinced that he’s not being left out of some Earth custom that he doesn’t know about yet.

“So what do we do with this information?” Troy asks, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees, looking serious.

“Be as enthusiastic as possible about how much you appreciate him when he does something nice,” Jake replies, just as serious. “He gets way too embarrassed about stuff like this. Make him feel like he’s doing a good job.”

“Tell him ‘good boy’?” Gia jokes before raising her hands in surrender as Jake cuts her a dirty look. “I’m kidding; I’m taking this seriously. I don’t want him to ever feel like we don’t appreciate and love him enough just because his parents were shitty.”

Jake nods firmly. “Good. He deserves better than feeling insecure all the time.”

 

So that’s how Gia ends up awake before she wants to be, eating food that doesn’t really taste any good, and smiling up at Noah like he hung not _only_ the moon but all the other planets and stars in the galaxy as well.

(Because, if she asked him to, he would probably re-hang them all for her.)


End file.
